Saturday, October 31, 2009

Toll Road News Weighs In On Corzine's Monetization Plans

Who knew there was a Toll Road News? A very astute MMM reader did.

From Toll Road news:
http://www.tollroadsnews.com/node/4424
posted 10/31/2009

Today Corzine said the New York Times "got it wrong."

He said he was talking about how "we may raise money out of our reststops on properties that surround the turnpike."


COMMENT: There is no serious extra money in rest stops or land along the New Jersey Turnpike.

Rest stops are already contracted as concessions having been auctioned to the highest bidder.

The Turnpike needs more land for widening, and any land it has to sell is low value because of utility easements, traffic noise and difficulties of access.

Most toll authorities periodically look at what land they can sell, and what extra income they can get from non-toll activities in order to avoid unpopular toll increases. There's usually not much there.

Accusing the New York Times of misreporting him is a classic case of shooting the messenger. They appear to have reported him quite accurately. However what he had said suddenly became a political liability, so he needed to "unsay" it by denouncing their quite accurate reporting.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Wait until the various Turnpike, Highway Authority (Garden State Parkway) and AC Expressway union workers and retirees find out that they would lose all their benefits if those authorities were sold to foreign interests. Might actually be fun to watch what they do to their union leaders for supporting Corzine.